AMERICA ENGULFED

World War III may have already begun in the Middle East, in our opinion, with the dawn of the "Arab Spring," the destabilization of governments from Egypt and Libya to Syria, Iraq and Yemen, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons driven by weak American acquiescence to the ambitions of the theocratic state of Iran's apocalyptic rulers.

Most people know that the world depends on oil from this region to fuel the world economy. Less well understood is how much the future of both the U.S. Dollar and the Euro depend on, and can be wrecked by chaos in, the Middle East.

One spark could ignite this highly flammable region, and if the Middle East catches fire it will melt down the global economy. In such a crisis, the dollar might lose 20, 30, or 40 percent or more of its purchasing power - and its precious status as the Global Reserve Currency - almost overnight.

For thousands of years, people in this region of turmoil have diversified a significant share of their savings into gold for safety. As we risk being engulfed by what is happening there, we each should follow their time-proven example rather than invest in mere paper money when the world is one spark away from a financial firestorm.

In mid-April, 2015, a small armada of Iranian warships approached the Gulf of Aden near the Persian Gulf to provide support and arms for their fellow Shiite Muslim allies who are trying to take over Yemen, a small nation on the southern border of Saudi Arabia.

Awaiting them were the American aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, its F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets, and at least 17 other U.S. Navy ships in the region. They were projecting force on behalf of our Sunni Muslim Saudi allies, even though officially the U.S. said we were merely "protecting shipping lanes."

Aden, local legend says, is where the ill-fated sons of Adam and Eve are buried. Cain, according to the Bible, was the first human born. Abel, murdered by his brother, was the first human to die.

Aden and its natural harbor, say scientists, sit in the crater of a huge dormant volcano that might someday erupt again, killing all who remain. In the Middle East, as author Aldous Huxley noted, everything is "usually destroyed," rebuilt and destroyed over and over throughout history.

This time what happened was expected: Iran's ships turned around after symbolically confronting some of the most powerful warships of the world's most powerful navy. If shots had been fired, however, anything might have happened"¦.and many such face-offs are expected in the future.

"Big Stick," as our seamen call this aircraft carrier, was reportedly "sunk" by the Dutch submarine Walrus during a 1999 naval war exercise. In 2015 the U.S. and French navies briefly acknowledged that during a recent at-sea war game off Florida the 34-year-old French submarine Saphir slipped undetected through carrier battle group defenses and "sank" the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

Iran has two military fleets. One is the government's official navy, which among other things reportedly has 37 submarines of various capabilities. The other is "the Navy of the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution," which operates approximately 1,500 boats, including small Fast Attack and missile boats.

In February 2015 this Revolutionary Guard navy carried out a military exercise near Larak Island and the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow choke point entrance and exit of the Persian Gulf through which 20 percent of the world's entire daily oil production travels by tanker ship. [1]

Iran looks out from islands and down from sheer cliffs along the northern side of this 21-nautical-mile-wide strait, the "jugular vein" of the developed world's oil-dependent economy. Iran's sea mines, anti-ship missiles and anti-aircraft missiles could cut off the oil flowing through here almost instantly at any time.

This military exercise, called "Great Prophet 9," featured Iranian boats and helicopters launching missiles at and sinking a large replica of a Nimitz-class large United States aircraft carrier that resembled the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

According to Jane's Defence Weekly, many old Iranian boats are being armed with Nasr, Noor or Qader anti-ship missiles. [2] Some Iranian attack craft may carry nuclear-capable versions of carrier-killer Russian "Sunburn"-type missiles that fly 10 feet above the water at between 2 and 3 times the speed of sound - far faster than a rifle bullet - and can change direction rapidly to evade defensive measures. [3]

In our book The Great Debasement: The 100-Year Dying of the Dollar and How to Get America's Money Back, we devote an entire chapter to how the U.S. fleet bottled up in the narrow waters of the Persian Gulf could be attacked and destroyed by using what military planners call "Asymmetric Warfare" tactics"¦.and how terrorists armed with nuclear weapons by nations such as Iran might soon launch similar attacks on the United States and other global powers. [4]

Far more than our fleet is vulnerable to such attack, as we explain in detail. A single small nuclear device detonated thousands of feet above the Persian Gulf would generate a powerful electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that would destroy computers and their records in nations around the gulf.

"In Bahrain the EMP destroys this global financial center's banking computers and data bases that shepherd much of the world's unseen juggling of the Euro," we wrote. "Within seconds, banks and exchanges across Europe begin to fall like dominoes, sucking the world economy into a vortex of chaos." [5]

During the past half-century, we have built a new technological civilization based on computer chips and digital storage of information. Now we find ourselves in an age of cyber warfare. We made ourselves totally dependent on computers that had never stood the test of time. Computerized bank accounts and other contents can be stolen, garbled or erased at the push of a button on the other side of the world.

In our book Don't Bank On It! The Unsafe World of 21st Century Banking, we show how terrorists could use the EMP of even a small nuclear weapon to fry banking and other computer chips and records as well as electrical power grids over areas 800 miles or more wide in the U.S. [6]

A single small terrorist nuke could destroy computers and their memories from Chicago, Toronto, Indianapolis and Detroit to New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Or from Miami, Tampa and Orlando to Atlanta, Nashville and New Orleans. Or from San Francisco and Silicon Valley to Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas and Phoenix. Or across Texas from Dallas and Houston to Austin, San Antonio, El Paso - and beyond to Tulsa, Little Rock and Baton Rouge. Or from Portland to Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia. [7]

A terrorist nuclear blast less than one-fifth the size of that over Hiroshima or Nagasaki at the right spot above Europe could wreck computers, bank records, and electrical power grids from London and Paris to Copenhagen, Zurich, Milan and Berlin. Such a blast could also destroy the computers of Belgium-based SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications - which could devastate banking worldwide. [8]

How, you might ask, could terrorists acquire even a small nuclear weapon? They might be armed and used as a weapon delivery system by notorious nations that already massively arm terrorists - nations such as Iran, now rushing to acquire nuclear weapon-making capability.

Historians might even record someday that America and its economy were destroyed by terrorist atomic weapons we ultimately provided. Here's how: As the New York Times reported, huge amounts of cash flowed into the Clinton Foundation immediately after then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined President Obama in tacitly approving the sale to Russia of a company that owns at least one-fifth of America's uranium deposits, a strategic resource we have used for both clean nuclear power and bombs. [9]

Russia has sold nuclear reactors and uranium to Iran (which might otherwise have had to buy its radioactive materials from North Korea or from Venezuela's mines). Russia, moreover, has announced that it is selling Iran ground-to-air missiles that could make preemptive attacks on its nuclear facilities by either Israel or the U.S. much less likely to succeed.

If Iran-armed nuclear terrorists Obliterate Omaha, Minneapolis, Cleveland, St. Louis or Denver, leaving radioactive holes beneath their mushroom clouds that will remain "clicking hot" with radioactivity for the next 20,000 years, the irony in this nightmare is that the uranium in these bombs may have come from the United States - because of the radical ideology or greed of a few American politicians.

Iran may soon have a choice whether to deliver its new nuclear weapons via terrorist or ballistic missile. A single missile nuclear detonation high enough above the heartland of the United States might instantly fry almost every computer from coast to coast, wiping out bank records, power grids, air traffic control, telecommunications and a million other computer-dependent things we depend on in the twinkling of an eye.

The Persian Gulf is far more essential to the U.S. Dollar's value than most Americans know. Here's why:

After World War II, the United States emerged as the preeminent military and industrial superpower on Planet Earth. As such, we established a Western economic system through the Bretton Woods agreement.

Although Americans had been prohibited from owning monetary gold since 1933, ending our prior gold standard, certain friendly foreign central banks could still exchange dollars for gold. Under Bretton Woods, the U.S. Dollar's value was pegged to gold - and the value of friendly nations' currencies was pegged to the dollar, creating a de facto indirect Western gold standard.

This system continued until August 15, 1971 when President Richard Nixon by Executive Order suddenly severed the link between the dollar and gold.

To fund the Vietnam War, the United States had printed paper dollars far in excess of the gold we had to back those dollars. President Lyndon Johnson had already ended the convertibility of Silver Certificate dollars into silver at a fixed rate. The risk that nations such as France had enough paper dollars to empty our gold repository at Fort Knox, Kentucky prompted Nixon's surprise action.

The Bretton Woods agreement had made the U.S. Dollar the world's Global Reserve Currency. This meant that if England or Japan wished to purchase a barrel of oil from Saudi Arabia or Iran, it first had to acquire dollars, the global "legal tender" for such transactions.

Being the printer of this global currency gave the United States what one French financial minister called an "exorbitant privilege," a huge advantage over other nations in world commerce and influence.

During America's Cold War struggle to contain godless Communism and the Soviet Union, Muslim oil-producing nations such as Saudi Arabia and Iran supported the United States and our dollar's reliable special status in buying and selling oil. This Petrodollar link between oil and America's currency meant that the U.S. Dollar would always be in demand and therefore could be printed forever"¦.or at least as long as this deal lasted.

When President Nixon eliminated our currency's gold anchor, however, the dollar lost a third of its purchasing power almost overnight. As we explored in our book Crashing the Dollar: How to Survive a Global Currency Collapse, by 1973 the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), feeling cheated that the dollar drop had stolen a third of their income, imposed their first oil embargo to regain the revenue value they were losing. [10]

When Mr. Nixon cut off the dollar's gold anchor, gold rose and the dollar sank.

For the first time since 1945, Western allies began considering whether to price commodities such as oil in no-longer-reliable U.S. Dollars or to switch to a more trustworthy global reserve currency such as a basket of different currencies"¦.or the Biblical, universal currency that Bretton Woods was originally supposed to be anchored on: gold.

Mr. Nixon was able to persuade the Saudis and Iranians not to abandon the Petrodollar. He promised them both financial and military support. The United States that bested Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II now seemed too weak to crush Soviet-aligned enemies in Cuba or Vietnam, yet we remained a global superpower both militarily and financially. We were the world's biggest consumer nation, the biggest buyer in a planet of sellers.

In effect, President Nixon reestablished the U.S. Dollar not on a gold standard, but on a Petrodollar de facto oil standard - on our money being the Global Reserve Currency that everyone else must have to buy oil.

Mr. Nixon, in effect, replaced the dollar's reliable old gold standard with a new "black gold" standard. Implicit in this deal was the reality that if the Petrodollar dies, so might the U.S. Dollar as the world's reserve currency.

We based our economy on consumption - 70 percent of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) - making us the world's best market for a wide variety of products sold by other nations.

We reduced our own oil production, apparently rationalizing this by assuming that we would let the other nations drain their own oil deposits while keeping ours unused for a future day when the price of scarce oil skyrockets.

Mr. Nixon also took the life-or-death gamble that we could embrace the Communist People's Republic of China and turn it into a capitalist country before we made it rich and powerful enough to destroy and devour us. We have yet to see whether this divide-and-conquer gambit against the Communist world was a winning or losing gamble.

We know this: the West is running out of chips and may be in deep trouble if others start calling America's bluff.

After the fall of Richard Nixon amidst scandals, and his appointed successor President Gerald Ford's anemic "Whip Inflation Now" ("WIN") campaign, Progressive Democrat Jimmy Carter was elected president. What followed were four years of foreign policy disasters, economic malaise, soaring interest rates and a declining dollar.

Eager to redistribute America's wealth, Carter signed into law the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which led to America's housing and economic near-collapse in 2008, as we explain in detail in our books Crashing the Dollar and Don't Bank On It! America continues to suffer from the malaise created by President Carter and his Progressive successors. [11]

President Carter helped topple the Shah of Iran, a key ally in the Persian Gulf. The Shah, who had promoted women's rights and other Western values, was replaced by the theocratic dictatorship of Islamists that rules Iran today. What followed was an Iran-Iraq War that killed at least 500,000 people and gave Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein the fourth largest military on Earth. This war would never have happened with the Shah in power.

With the Shah gone, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan on Iran's eastern border. Islamist groups rushed to fight the Soviets, including Al Qaeda led by a wealthy Saudi named Osama bin Laden. He soon learned that terrorist tactics and a few special weapons could defeat the seemingly invincible Soviet Union. He would later apply what he learned in Al Qaeda's 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon that killed 3,000 Americans.

With the blood of untold numbers of victims on his hands, and having destabilized the entire world, Mr. Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. As President Bill Clinton's chief envoy to North Korea in nuclear negotiations, Carter opened the way to this fanatical Communist dictatorship also acquiring nuclear weapons.

President Ronald Reagan's 1980 election transformed America. He applied the fiscal and monetary discipline to roll back rampant inflation. He restored optimism, investment and a prosperous economy that would last 25 years.

President Reagan made defeating the Soviet Union his highest priority and succeeded, although one price for this was that a Democrat-controlled Congress greatly expanded welfare state spending.

If history is honest, Ronald Reagan will be remembered as one of an imperial America's best "good emperors," our Marcus Aurelius. The failing of Aurelius was that he left the Roman Empire to his son, the mentally-ill Commodus. Mr. Reagan entrusted his legacy to a more centrist successor, George H.W. Bush, the start of a family dynasty that saw son George W. Bush - and may yet see another son, Jeb Bush - become President.

The first Bush was succeeded by Democratic President Bill Clinton, remembered for scandals, as the first elected President to be impeached, and for creating the "Clinton prosperity."

Reagan and Bush policies produced the collapse of the Soviet Union, which should have returned vast amounts of military spending as tax reductions to hard-pressed working Americans over a decade or more as a "peace dividend."

Instead, Bill Clinton slashed defense spending by $125 Billion a year, sharply raised taxes, and used this money to expand social spending and other Progressive Big Government policies. In effect, he took a giant credit card others had paid for and used it to buy votes with left-of-center ideological spending.

On 9-11, thousands of Americans would paid with their lives for the cuts Bill and Hillary Clinton had made in America's military and intelligence capabilities.

Clinton spending produced economic stimulus in some parts of the country, but his cuts devastated the economy in places of intense military spending such as Southern California. By using the CRA to pressure banks to make millions of mortgage loans to those who were poor credit risks, Clinton also set up the economic near-collapse of 2008 and today's lingering invisible recession.

If Clinton had resigned or been removed from office after being impeached, Vice President Al Gore would have become President and as an incumbent might easily have won the 2000 and 2004 elections. Instead, Gore lost in 2000 because voters who knew him best in his home state Tennessee and in the Clintons' Arkansas voted against him.

President George W. Bush responded to the terrorist attacks of 9-11 by playing "Big Casino," attempting to democratize the oil sheikdoms and dictatorships in the Middle East and Persian Gulf. The fear was that Iran had become one model of the future - that the region was destined either to become democratic or be taken over by Islamist fanatics like the Ayatollahs in Iran.

In September 2008, weeks before America's presidential election, the U.S. faced "a financial Pearl Harbor." Bear raids backed by more than half a trillion dollars of foreign money brought down Lehman Brothers and threatened to cause the collapse of several other of America's biggest banks and investment institutions.

As we document in Don't Bank On It!, this attack apparently involved Russia - the world's largest oil producer - and money from Islamic oil states. In the midst of this economic chaos, oil prices soared. Suddenly the proven oil reserves of the OPEC nations were, as we wrote, "virtually equal to the value of all other world financial assets, including every share of stock, every bond, every private company, all government and corporate debt, and the entire world's bank deposits." [12]

While the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury scrambled to provide trillions in loans to banks here and abroad to prevent a global economic meltdown, America went to the polls and elected an almost unknown Democratic politician from Chicago, Barack Hussein Obama.

We now recognize that President Obama, a radical community organizer, has attempted to govern via bureaucratic regulation, executive orders and emergency decrees.

Under him, the government and Federal Reserve have created out of thin air $8 Trillion in stimulus funding and zero-interest lending. According to the Keynesian economics embraced by White House economists, our economy fueled by this much money should be rising like a skyrocket. Instead, economic growth in the first quarter of 2015 was originally measured at zero, then revised by the Federal Reserve to 0.1 percent growth so that two such quarters would not officially define us as back in a recession.

The stimulus, as we predicted, has turned into an "anti-stimulus," making companies so afraid of the economic future that they are reluctant to expand or hire. It does not help that President Obama displays open hostility to capitalism and has advocated or imposed 472 tax increases. Almost the only government spending cuts he favors are to the military.

American companies already pay the heaviest business taxes of all advanced countries - on average 46.3 percent of their earnings in federal, state and local taxes - while President Obama and his political party threaten even higher taxes and regulatory burdens for business. This imposes what we have called a "donkey drag" on the economy and growth.

We expect this to continue, however, because 49.5 percent of American households now have at least one person living there who receives some kind of government benefit. In at least 15 states, welfare now pays more than does working for minimum wage. In Hawaii, untaxed welfare benefits pay as much as someone with a $60,000 per year job has left after paying taxes.

More than 92 million working-age Americans have not found full-time jobs, the worst job participation rate since Jimmy Carter's economic malaise in 1978. Because almost all of these unemployed and underemployed people have given up looking for work, they simply are not counted in the unemployment statistics - which the Obama Administration insists are improving. Fewer and fewer analysts believe the massaged numbers coming out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other Executive branch bureaucracies.

America now has almost as many people receiving Social Security Disability payments as it has workers employed full-time in manufacturing, in making things. Hamburger flipper and waitress jobs are being created, but most are part-time and low-paid, not the kinds of jobs that provide young people with the cash or credit needed to buy a car or home. No wonder the economy seems stuck, and millions are either ready to use the social safety net as their hammock or are looking for the exit.

In the past six and a half years of his Administration, President Obama's economy has produced some new jobs. Unfortunately, the number of people who arrived here illegally that he has allowed to compete with American-born workers exceeds all the jobs created. In other words, the real net growth in jobs for those born in America is less than zero.

Truth be told, we remain in a severe recession that vast amounts of stimulus spending, zero-interest loans and debt so deep that it can never be paid off have been unable to cure. We are stuck in quicksand and sinking.

Only two things have kept today's recession from being obvious. Today's soup line, unlike those of the 1930s Great Depression, is invisible because government benefits arrive in the mail.

And in places such as North Dakota entrepreneurs on private land have been using improved hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") methods to extract large amounts of oil. This has relieved sky-high gasoline prices.

President Obama, who has reduced oil drilling on federal lands, alternates between claiming political credit for this oil boom's falling gas prices and good-paying jobs, and imposing government regulation to restrict it.

Among the world's largest oil producers, Russia is #1, producing roughly 14 percent of the global supply. Saudi Arabia is #2, producing around 13 percent. The U.S. has risen to #3, now supplying more than 12 percent of global consumption - but this is consumed almost entirely for our own needs. Iran, by comparison, produces just 4 percent of the world's oil.

So why are we engulfed in today's religious and political power struggles in the Middle East and Persian Gulf?

We have an implicit deal with nations such as Saudi Arabia. We provide them with high-tech weapons, protection, and a lucrative market for their oil, and they continue to accept the U.S. Dollar as the Global Reserve Currency.

In effect, we need Saudi help to preserve a privileged monopoly status for the U.S. Dollar"¦.much as we enforce the power of the dollar inside the U.S. by requiring citizens to pay their taxes in dollars, not in gold or any other currency.

The Saudis and other OPEC members are doubtless annoyed, therefore, that our government is allowing fracking to drive down the price of oil and gasoline in the U.S. Bloomberg reports that some oil exporters have begun dumping Petrodollar assets at a record pace. [13]

They have lowered oil prices to make fracking in the U.S. less profitable, thereby driving our marginal oil companies out of business. According to Bloomberg, up to half of America's fracking companies might soon be sold or out of business. [14]

But if we halt fracking, our economy might slide into deep recession or even depression. Fracking is an important component in keeping our economy afloat.

As President Obama keeps cutting back on our military, our ability and will to defend our interests and allies overseas becomes more and more questionable.

And while Mr. Obama weakens the U.S. both militarily and economically, he continues to make concessions in negotiations with Iran which virtually guarantee that this Islamist theocracy will soon possess nuclear weapons.

This in turn pushes Saudi Arabia and other Sunni oil states to acquire nuclear weapons of their own, which propels an atomic arms race and further destabilizes this region the world depends on for oil.

This reduces our ability to defend allies without high risk, and it increases the likelihood that in the near future we could face terrorists armed with nuclear weapons on our own soil.

The apocalyptic Ayatollahs of Iran believe that they can bring about the global triumph of Islam through nuclear war, and their Shiite theology teaches that it is acceptable to lie in order to advance the cause of Islam. Our Israeli allies understand this. Perhaps President Obama does not.

Meanwhile, Russia and China are advocating that the U.S. Dollar be deposed as the Global Reserve Currency. They now use their own national currencies when trading with one another. The Islamic world is considering whether to return to a historic currency - the gold Dinar. [15] The late Muammar Ghaddafi was one of the biggest supporters of turning the gold Dinar into the currency of Africa.

The end of the dollar's Global Reserve Currency status might mean that we have to pay to acquire somebody else's reserve currency"¦.and this might push our already fragile economy closer to the breaking point.

Support from the Saudis helps us keep this special status. The question we need to ponder is whether the price in blood and treasure that we are paying to own the world's Global Reserve Currency has become too high.

The world would have a more honest and efficient economy if we simply returned to a universal gold standard and let competition and free markets determine prices.

This was the America our Framers wanted - a land where solid, honest money prevented spendaholic politicians from buying votes and kept the size of government in check. Honest money meant that no central bank like the Fed was needed to manipulate interest rates or the money supply; honest money is automatically self-regulating through the natural market law of supply and demand.

The good news is that you have the power to create your own honest money, your own nest egg of money as America's Framers defined it. And when the world is on fire, it is good to know that solid money has never burned to ashes. Even if it melts, gold retains its fundamental value, which is why it has been used universally, the ultimate global reserve money, in the Middle East and elsewhere since Biblical times.

What if the value of your savings fell by 20%, 30% or 40%? Would you be able to retire - or even to maintain your lifestyle?

In today's world - vulnerable to terrorism, at war as well as in currency wars, with America's economy in quicksand, with the dollar fragile and at risk of losing its monopoly status as the world's reserve currency - it is prudent to invest a portion of your assets into fire insurance.

Those who live in a burning world should hedge against the risk of living in an economy and a house made entirely of paper money. You need to create at least a "safe room" in your life of assets that are fireproof and will never burn to ashes.

[1] Thomas Erdbrink, "Iran's Navy Blasts Away at a Mock U.S. Carrier," New York Times, February 25, 2015. URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/26/world/middleeast/in-mock-attack-iranian-navy-blasts-away-at-replica-us-aircraft-carrier.html

[2] Jeremy Binnie, "Analysis: Iranian Navy Up-Arms Old Patrol Boats With Anti-Ship Missiles," IHS Jane's Defence Weekly, December 4, 2014. URL: http://www.janes.com/article/46671/analysis-iranian-navy-up-arms-old-patrol-boats-with-anti-ship-missiles

[3] John Keller, "How Vulnerable Are U.S. Navy Vessels to Advanced Atni-ship Cruise Missiles?" Military & Aerospace, July 9, 2013. URL: http://www.militaryaerospace.com/blogs/mil-aero-blog/2013/07/how-vulnerable-are-u-s-navy-vessels-to-advanced-anti-ship-cruise-missiles.html

[4] Craig R. Smith and Lowell Ponte, The Great Debasement: The 100-Year Dying of the Dollar and How to Get America's Money Back. Phoenix: Idea Factory Press, 2012. Pages 171-186.

[5] Ibid., Page 176.

[6] Craig R. Smith and Lowell Ponte, Don't Bank On It! The Unsafe World of 21st Century Banking. Phoenix: Idea Factory Press, 2014. Pages 42-44.

[7] Ibid., Page 43

[8] Ibid., Pages 43-44.

[9] Jo Becker and Mike McIntire, "Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal," New York Times, April 23, 2015. URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html; see also Charles Krauthammer, "Obama's Nixon Doctrine: Anointing Iran," Washington Post, April 23, 2015. URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-nixon-doctrine-anointing-iran/2015/04/23/c5e42846-e9e9-11e4-aae1-d642717d8afa_story.html; Daniel Wiser, "Experts: Obama Helping Iran Become Nuclear Threshold State," Washington Free Beacon, April 23, 2015. URL: http://freebeacon.com/national-security/experts-obama-helping-iran-become-nuclear-threshold-state/; Jennifer Rubin, "Obama Is Prepared to Give Iran Anything and Everything For a Deal," Washington Post, April 19, 2015. URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2015/04/19/obama-is-prepared-to-give-iran-anything-and-everything-for-a-deal/; Peter Schweizer, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Clinton Rich. New York: Harper, 2015.

[10] Craig R. Smith and Lowell Ponte, Crashing the Dollar: How to Survive a Global Currency Collapse. Phoenix: Idea Factory Press, 2010. Pages 6-16.

[11] Ibid., Pages 39-70.

[12] Craig R. Smith and Lowell Ponte, Don't Bank On It! The Unsafe World of 21st Century Banking. Phoenix: Idea Factory Press, 2014. Pages 28-35.

[13] Javier Blas, "Oil-Rich Nations Are Selling Off Their Petrodollar Assets at Record Pace," Bloomberg Business, April 13, 2015. URL: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-13/oil-rich-nations-burn-through-petrodollar-assets-at-record-pace; Tyler Durden, "The Collapse Of The Petrodollar: Oil Exporters Are Dumping US Assets At A Record Pace," Zerohedge.com, April 15, 2015. URL: http://www.zerohedge.com/print/504855

[14] David Wethe, "Half of U.S. Fracking Companies Will Be Dead or Sold This Year," Bloomberg Business, April 22, 2015. URL: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-22/half-of-u-s-fracking-companies-will-be-dead-or-sold-this-year

[15] Craig R. Smith and Lowell Ponte, The Great Debasement: The 100-Year Dying of the Dollar and How to Get America's Money Back. Phoenix: Idea Factory Press, 1912. Pages 246-247.